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Indenting Code

When you type code, it is indented automatically according to the selected text editor and code style options. Select a block to indent it when you press Tab. Press Shift+Tab to decrease the indentation. You can disable automatic indentation.

When you press Backspace, the indentation is decreased by one level in leading white space, by default. You can disable this setting.

Continuation lines are aligned with the previous line by using spaces. You can disable automatic alignment to have them indented to the logical depth. You can always use spaces for alignment or use spaces or tabs depending on the other options you selected.

You can specify indentation either globally for all files or separately for:

Text files
C++ files
QML files

You can specify indentation either globally for all files of a particular type or separately for each project.

Indenting Text Files

To specify global indentation settings for the text editor, select Tools > Options... > Text Editor > Behavior. You can also use these settings globally for all editors and files.

"Text Editor Behavior options"

To specify settings for a particular project, select Projects > Editor Settings.

Indenting C++ Files

To specify global indentation settings for the C++ editor, select Tools > Options... > C++.

"C++ Code Style options"

To specify the settings for a particular project, select Projects > Code Style Settings.

You can specify how to:

Interpret the Tab and Backspace key presses.
Indent the contents of classes, methods, blocks, and namespaces.
Indent braces in classes, namespaces, enums, methods, and blocks.
Control switch statements and their contents.
Align continuation lines.

You can use the live preview to see how the options change the indentation.

Indenting QML Files

To specify global settings for the Qt Quick editor, select Tools > Options... > Qt Quick.

"QML Code Style options"

To specify the settings for a particular project, select Projects > Code Style Settings.

You can specify how to interpret the Tab and Backspace key presses.

Specifying Tab Settings

You can specify tab settings at the following levels:

Global settings for all files
Global C++ settings for C++ files
Global Qt Quick settings for QML files
Project specific settings for all editors of files in the project
Project specific settings for C++ files in the project
Project specific settings for QML files in the project

By default, the tab-length in code editor is 8 spaces. You can specify the tab length separately for each project and for different types of files.

The code editor can also determine whether tabs or spaces are used on the previous or next line and copy the style.

The Tab key can automatically indent text when you press it, or only when the cursor is located within leading white space.

Specifying Settings for Content

You can indent public, protected, and private statements and declarations related to them within classes.

You can also indent statements within methods and blocks and declarations within namespaces.

"Content options"

Specifying Settings for Braces

You can indent class, namespace, enum and method declarations and code blocks.

"Braces options"

Specifying Settings for Switch Statements

You can indent case or default statements, or statements or blocks related to them within switch statements.

"Switch options"

Specifying Alignment

To align continuation lines to tokens after assignments, such as = or +=, select the Align after assignments check box. You can specify additional settings for aligning continuation lines in the General tab.

You can also add spaces to conditional statements, so that they are not aligned with the following line. Usually, this only affects if statements.

"Alignment options"